These boards have been posted about earlier (there was a thread somewhere on here) - its nice to see that you can download the IDE now (though I am wondering if the Linux version will run on 64-bit Linux).

The thing that bothers me is whether by having this higher performance (and lower cost) option, if people will go for it, rather than the standard 8-bit version - in order to simply throw more hardware at a problem which could be better solved with another design. I mean, right now (well, maybe "before") you didn't have much of an option, except for the Mega (or Sanguino) - the lower power forced you to come up with unique and innovative solutions to certain issues. I just wonder if we might see a "code bloat" or "hardware bloat" that is just there to cover for sloppy design (both software and hardware).

Don't get me wrong - more powerful hardware might and probably will lead to even more interesting things coming out for the Arduino; I just don't think the full capabilities of the current "low-end" ATMega328 have been fully exploited.

My only other "gripe" is that the Pic32 doesn't come in DIP form (can't expect it too, either). While nothing beyond the 644 does either, at least that is still an option available (though most people probably don't do standalone designs - so maybe it won't matter for most)...

I will not respond to Arduino help PM's from random forum users; if you have such a question, start a new topic thread.

Thanks for putting things into some perspective. I had not heard of these. I agree that this could be overkill for a lot of projects. Heck, the 328 is WAY too overkill for most projects I'm planning on soon. I've been meaning to play with the ATtiny's since they would do a lot of what I would want to do but 328's are just so easy and cheap so I haven't yet.

But I have a friend who has a big lighting project he's working on and the expanded I/O and increased memory would be perfect for him.

I had one, took me ages to find it.Like this, but in a DIPhttp://www.datasheets.org.uk/pdf-datasheets/Datasheets-25/DSA-491547.htmlSignetics I think. Was pain in the butt finding it. I think I sent liudr a copy of it, it was the only one I had and I might have deleted the datasheet after that.